Abstract

In this work, we investigate the importance of lateral electronic coupling in a dense ensemble of anisotropic epitaxial nanostructures called quantum dashes. The respective confined state energy levels and the related tunneling times between two neighboring nanostructures are calculated using a simplified approach with parabolic effective masses in a single band k·p approximation, and assuming infinite size of the quantum dashes in the elongation direction. There has been studied the influence of the cross-sectional dimensions of the dashes, their lateral separation and the barrier material. Eventually, the impact of the inhomogeneity within the ensemble of nanostructures has been discussed. For the presented calculations the InAs dashes on InP substrate have been chosen as a model system because of the high areal density and strong in-plane anisotropy obtained typically in the self-assembled growth by molecular beam epitaxy.